Thursday, June 14, 2007

Doing the Charleston, Part Two: Dogs the Musical

Our first day at the Piccolo Spoleto festival in Charleston, SC was marked by a massive media blitz. First, we appeared on Low Country Live, a local morning news program.There we pathetically re-enacted our most accessible material without going over our three minute time slot. The hosts of the program chuckled politely, perhaps out of contractual obligation. Then it was off to a teaser performance at what seemed to be a craft fair.

The act before us sang songs from an original musical opening that week. It’s name? “Dogs the Musical.”

We didn’t see the entire show, so I can’t speak for the piece as a whole. But I can say that from what I saw, I think the same thing happened to Corky St. Clair of Christopher Guest’s “Waiting for Guffman” that happened to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character in “Last Action Hero.” Think about it.

One song told the tale of a young pet psychic who can hear what the “dogs” are thinking. The dogs, by the way, are humans with make-up on their noses. Another repeatedly featured the refrain “Bow-wow, yeah, yeah!” My favorite moment by far was when Priscilla, the one feline in the cast, refused to be groomed like her canine friends. I forget the exact line, but she said something about not wanting someone clipping near her “anal glands.” This was sung at full volume and in brilliant sunshine by a local woman of some sixty plus years, wearing cat ears.

But the strangest thing about DTM is that it costs $22 to see. We know this from a ticket stub found in the gutter, which may or may not have been a statement about the quality of the show.

-Aaron Kagan tours the US with the Late Night Players sketch comedy team when he isn't being mean to local theater productions.

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